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World Business Quick Take

■ RETAL

Wal-Mart sales held up

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's biggest retailer, said it is having problems processing gift cards. In a statement on Wednesday, Wal-Mart said once it discovered the problem, it investigated and found that a "third-party verifier's systems had an inadvertent processing error." The retailer said the error caused delays in gift card verifications. "We are working with the supplier to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and we apologize for the inconvenience to our customers," the store said in the statement.

■ LENDING

China lowers loan target

China's central bank has set a lower target for loan growth at 12 percent for next year to curb lending growth and cool the economy, state media reported yesterday. Lending growth would be strictly controlled and branches required to report new loans monthly, the Shanghai Securities News reported, citing a source with a major state-owned bank. The lending growth target for this year was 15 percent. But that has already been overshot with new yuan loans up nearly 21 percent from year-on-year between last January and last month.

■ VIETNAM

Trade deficit doubles

Vietnam's trade deficit more than doubled to a record this year, the government estimated, driven primarily by accelerating import growth as the country's industrialization target stokes machinery purchases. The gap widened to US$12.44 billion this year from US$5.07 billion last year, according to preliminary figures released yesterday by the General Statistics Office in Hanoi. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told a conference in Hanoi this month that the government wants Vietnam to become an industrialized country by 2020. To meet the goal, Vietnam must import materials to build power plants, roads and refineries that are now moving from a drawing-board phase to the construction stage.

■ JAPAN

Balancing books not easy

Japan's government may not be able to achieve its goal of balancing its books by 2011, the Finance Ministry's top official said. "It's clear that we can't be optimistic about balancing the budget" by then, Vice Finance Minister Hiroki Tsuda said at a news conference in Tokyo yesterday. "We're going to keep making the utmost efforts to revamp spending and revenue." Japan has set a goal of achieving primary balance of its budget by April 2011. Tsuda cited a report by members of the government's economic panel that said balancing the budget by 2011 will only be possible if Japan keeps cutting spending and increasing revenue and economic growth at home and abroad remains solid.

■ OIL

Shell joins methane project

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, bought a 55 percent stake in a venture to develop coal-bed methane close to its joint gas project with PetroChina Co in northern China. China's Ministry of Commerce approved an agreement for Shell to acquire the stake in Verona Development Corp in a 30-year production-sharing contract, the company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The exploration of the North Shilou block in the Ordos Basin will end in of 2010, followed by five years of development and another 20 years of production, it said.
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